Lawmakers Say U.S. Being Taunted Over Snowden

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, left, talks with Bolivia’s President Evo Morales during a welcome ceremony for presidents attending an extraordinary meeting in Cochabamba, Bolivia, Thursday, July 4, 2013.

Countries offering asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden are taunting the U.S., top lawmakers said Sunday, and any country that eventually accepts Mr. Snowden should face economic reprisals from Washington, they said.

The ultimate destination of Mr. Snowden remained in the air on Sunday, with Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela all apparently offering him a home, but no clear word yet on what Mr. Snowden might use for travel documents or if Russia would allow him to depart. He appears to remain inside the transit zone in Moscow’s international airport.

All the countries making offers for Mr. Snowden now are part of the so-called ALBA bloc, acolytes of former Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez and promoters of a brand of leftist populism that seeks to undermine U.S. influence in the region. Ecuador, the fourth member of the bloc, had earlier mulled an asylum offer for Mr. Snowden.

“I think the Chinese got everything they needed out of Snowden, the Russians have now gotten everything they needed out of Snowden, and I think the next chapter in this book is, somewhere in Latin America, one of these countries who is antagonistic to the United States” will try to lure Mr. Snowden as a publicity coup, said Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Mich.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

“I do think the United States needs to take action on this,” he said. “This is serious business. Those Latin American countries that enjoy certain trade benefits with the United States, we ought to look at all of that, to send a very clear message that we will not put up with this kind of behavior,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday morning.

That sentiment was echoed across the aisle and in the upper chamber by Robert Menendez (D., NJ), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“I think you have to look, whether you look at trade preferences, other elements of our policy, our aid, our trade,” he said. Any acceptance of Mr. Snowden by any country “is going to put them directly against the U.S., and they need to know that,” he added.

The U.S. has a strong trade relationship with Venezuela, second only to Mexico among Latin American countries in exports to the U.S., mostly oil. Approving the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline would be one way to retaliate economically and undermine Venezuelan oil exports, since the pipeline would displace some Venezuelan crude from Gulf Coast refineries.

Foreign aid to Latin America has already fallen thanks to the sequester and Congress will have to take up the administration’s request for fiscal year 2014, giving lawmakers a chance to match the bark with some bite.

Sen. John McCain looked beyond the repercussions for ALBA countries and focused instead on on Russia and Vladmir Putin.

“That reset button, we ought to throw that away. It’s clear what [Mr. Putin] is, an old apparatchik, a KGB colonel, and he’s not interested in better relations with the United States; if he was, he would make sure that Mr. Snowden was sent back to us,” Mr. McCain said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday morning.

Some Russian lawmakers have suggested Venezuela could be the likeliest destination and Mr. Snowden’s last chance for asylum, since Caracas and Washington have such an antagonistic relationship already. Venezuelan officials said over the weekend they will give Mr. Snowden until Monday to decide.

If Caracas falls through, Mr. Snowden will have no choice but to accept that marriage offer from former spy Anna Chapman, a top Russian lawmaker joked.

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